by Cora Davies
Claire turned around, throwing her hands in front of her face; tiny pieces of glitter and confetti shot into the air, sticking to her hands and trailing down to the floor. She dropped her hands in time to see Rachel stick a party favor in her mouth and blow into it. It unfurled to smack Claire on the nose.
"Congratulations!" Rachel yelled, jumping up and down, her blond hair seeming to float around her.
"Congratulations?" Claire asked, brushing tiny bits of confetti off of her face. She crouched down, scooping as much of the confetti into her hands as possible. She inspected the party confetti, but she saw her name on a tiny strip; shredded mail. "You threw trash at me."
Rachel grabbed Claire's hands and pulled her to her feet. Claire sighed as all the papers she had just picked up floated back to the floor.
"You know I live with children, right? Their entire life's mission is to create a mess. I don't need the adults in my life doing the same thing."
"Leave it! We're celebrating! It's your last semester. This time next year you'll be teaching a room full of little mess makers." Rachel pulled Claire into an embrace. Claire stiffened her shoulders at first; she wanted to be irritated with her sister, but Rachel's good mood was infectious as always. Claire allowed herself to fall into her sister's hug.
"You're assuming a lot. Who knows if I'll even get a job?" Claire said, her laugh muffled against her sister's shoulder. "And you're in an amazing mood. What's up?"
"My neighbors are moving out!" Rachel fell into the brown reclining couch. A gear popped and the feet of the couch shot out. Rachel clutched at her chest. "Holy shit! When are you going to get furniture that doesn't eject me like a spy car!"
"When my kids are done spilling milk on everything in the house. That's when I'll buy new furniture. When are you going to stop throwing yourself into my furniture like it's a swimming pool?" Claire opened the coat closet, pulled out the vacuum and set it in front of Rachel. "For when you're done being dramatic."
Claire dropped the diaper bag on the ground next to the coffee table, buried under Legos, board books and whatever magazines Rachel had brought with her. She walked through the swinging door into the kitchen.
Her house was a disaster, but what was that silly phrase she read on Pinterest all the time? 'We're busy making memories.' When they moved in, Robert decided the first thing he would do was refinish the kitchen. He tore out half of the cabinets and counters, stacking them in the corner of the kitchen where they still sat two years later. Her ever growing to-do list included hauling the scraps to the dump. But the task always worked its way to the bottom of her list.
Claire grabbed a Pepsi out of the fridge and returned to the living room. She settled in on the couch next to her sister, tucking her feet under her. From the back of the couch, she grabbed the black and white afghan and tossed it over her knees.
"When are they moving out?" Claire leaned her head back and closed her eyes. They snapped open a second later. "Do I smell pizza?"
"Oh!" Rachel leaned forward, pushing her magazines off the coffee table and onto the floor, revealing a box of pizza.
"You are my favorite person right now," Claire said, taking the box from Rachel. She opened the lid and inhaled the scent of cheese, grease and sausage; the works -- Claire's favorite. She grabbed a slice, warm still, and took a bite.
"They're moving next Monday. I guess they're renting a house in the valley, on one of the numbered streets," Rachel said. "I ran into the poor chick after my nail appointment today, she looks like shit. Remind me to never, ever become a mother."
"Um," Claire said around a mouthful. "Thanks."
"No, you know what I mean! That whole brand new baby, not sleeping stuff." Rachel grabbed a slice of pizza.
"You will have ten kids, just watch," Claire said.
"Don't put that evil on me!" Rachel said, laughing and taking a large bite.
"You'll love every second," Claire said. She imagined Rachel as a mother one day in the distant future. She'd probably surprise both of them and be one of those perfect Pinterest moms.
"Nope," Rachel said, through a full mouth of food.
"You're amazing with my kids," Claire insisted.
Rachel raised her finger, and quickly chewed her food, swallowing before speaking again. "That's different. They are the coolest people in the world and I get to do all the fun stuff with them because I'm Aunt Rachel. I don't have to deal with the real mom stuff."
"Whatever. But, you cursed yourself. It's like when a guy says he's never getting married and then the next month-"
"You're at his wedding!"
"Exactly," Claire said. They were going to Molly and Jack's wedding in the spring. The story being that Jack had sworn off serious relationships when he and Molly had worked in Santa's Workshop together and fell back in love.
"Speaking of men-"
"We weren't."
"How was Robert when you dropped the kiddos off?" Rachel tossed her uneaten crust back into the box and grabbed another slice of pizza.
"Massive prick to me, and captain amazing to the kids. As always." Claire sighed, picking a mushroom out of the cheese and offering it to Rachel.
"I hate him. If he had not given me those two adorable children of yours to love on, I'd kick his ass." Rachel threw her hands around animatedly when she said this, slapping her purse off of the side table. She leaned over the couch and came back up with her black bag.
Claire remembered tiny purses from before she had children. She was lucky these days if she left the house without half of the backseat packed with kid's stuff and at least two diaper bags. "Before I forget, I checked your mail when I came in."
She handed Claire two envelopes. "That was nice of you."
Rachel shrugged. "Sometimes I am."
Claire ripped open her GI Bill statement. The GI Bill was the money for college she had earned by serving in the military. Claire should have been able to get a four-year degree in teaching with the money, which was the intention. With as often as she had let Robert bully her into dropping out of school, she was lucky she squeezed two full years of school out of it.
"How was school?" Rachel asked, flicking the statement in Claire's hand.
"Good," Claire said. Eli's gray eyes appeared in her mind. She pushed him away every time she had thought about him on the drive home. It was ridiculous. A stupid crush. Maximized by him calling her beautiful, touching her leg and being too damn hot. She picked at the corner of the envelope. "Eli's in my art class."
"Eli?" Rachel said. "Like from the brewery?"
"He seems nice." Claire lifted the soda to take a sip before Rachel could notice the smile spreading on her face. She was not fast enough.
"What is that look for?" Rachel asked. "Don't even think about it. He is serious trouble."
"I wasn't thinking about anything," Claire insisted. "Even if I did, guys like him don't date girls like me."
"Oh hush, he'd be lucky to have you." Rachel grabbed a magazine and smacked Claire with it. "He doesn't deserve someone like you."
"Didn't you just say, don't think about him?" Claire teased.
"You're messing with me. Don't stress me out like that. He's bad news. Like, real bad news, not just like... 'I have smoldering eyes so have sex with me' bad news."
"Did you guys have sex?" Claire asked, her eyes wide. If Eli and Rachel had slept together that would be worse than webbed toes.
"Ha! No. Hell no. I don't date guys like that."
"What does that mean?" Claire wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin.
"He gets in a lot of fights." Rachel rolled her eyes. "Or, at least he used to."
"Did you actually see him get into a fight?"
"Twice, down at Squatters while you guys lived in California, and trust me... he comes off all nice and helpful, but underneath it all, he's an asshole."
"California? That was years ago. And what the hell were you doing at Squatters?" Squatters was the small bar just outside of town, with a rough reputation.
"Nuts. Crazy. Skanky."
Rachel raised her hand in defense. "Alright, alright I know; I screwed up. It wasn't easy at Mom's after you left." Rachel picked at her chipped nail polish. "But, I'm not who we're talking about here. We're talking about Eli. I saw him hit a guy with an eight ball."
"Like a pool ball?"
"Yes. Anyways, he smacked him in the back of the head with an eight ball. He was lucky the guy didn't die, I swear."
"Why'd he hit him?" Claire asked, closing her eyes and imagining Eli hitting someone like that.
"I don't know, and that's not the point. Good guys don't knock people out with pool balls."
"I don't think Molly would work with him if he was volatile, do you?"
"He owns the place with Jack, it's not like she has a choice." Rachel disappeared into the kitchen and Claire heard glasses clinking.
She did not know Eli owned the brewery with Jack. She thought he just worked there. There was no way Molly would go into business with someone unless she trusted him. Rachel walked back into the living room with a bottle of wine and two empty glasses.
"I can't drink tonight, Rach," Claire said. "Work starts at four."
"In the morning? You're crazy." Rachel sat on the recliner, and Claire spread out on the couch, flipping on the TV. "See if Bridget's on! She used to date Eli."
"I thought she did the five o'clock news?" Claire asked, but flipped to Channel 5. Behind the desk sat an older anchor, not Bridget. She wanted to ask Rachel what happened between Eli and Bridget, but she thought better than talking about Eli too much in one night. Her sister might suspect she had a crush, and then she would never leave Claire alone. But one thing still ate at her. "Eight years ago you saw Eli get into a fight, and you've decided he's a big asshole forever?"
"There's other stuff," Rachel said, squinting at Claire. "Mostly fights. A lot of fights. Then I heard from Beth, who heard from Jenny, who used to date Rick-"
Claire laughed. "Nope! I do not listen to stories that start that way." Claire shook her head pulling the blanket up around her shoulders.
"No, listen! Rick said that Eli and his dad used to sell drugs out of their gas station."
"No, they didn't!" Claire sat up and the blanket fell off of her. "Molly wouldn't work with a drug dealer."
"He did -- just no one could ever prove it. Where do you think a guy like him got the money to buy a brewery? He couldn't have made that much off selling his dad's old shop, that place was falling apart. The one off of Fourth Street and Tanner?"
Rachel grabbed the remote, turning up the volume. A report came on about the local bait and tackle shop running a clothing drive the following weekend, but Claire did her best to tune the TV out.
Claire knew the old auto garage. It reminded Claire of the sort of garage one would see in the middle of a desert, partly boarded up and weather-beaten siding. The garage was exactly the kind of place a rumor might explode from. Could there be truth to anything Rachel said?
Could she really have spent the evening talking to, no, fantasizing about, a violent drug dealer? Claire shuddered. She hoped Rachel was wrong. Gossip was like a weed in a small town like Seaside Cove. Eli could have been busted with a single pill that did not belong to him and the gossip mill turned it into him having an entire drug operation.
"Oh!" Rachel sat up as soon as a commercial started. "I almost forgot to tell you, the reason I'm here!"
"Not to celebrate my last semester at school?" Claire asked, feigning surprise. "Or because of a screaming baby?"
"No, of course I was here for those reasons. But, you know how we agreed you were going to get back out there? I met a guy who is perfect for you."
"Oh God." Claire placed a throw pillow over her face. "Please tell me you are joking. I thought we were just messing around. I don't have time for a boyfriend."
"Okay, you guys don't have to fall in love, but you could stand to get laid." Rachel pulled the pillow off Claire's face, only to smack her with it. "When was the last time you had sex?"
"It's been... a while."
"What is a while?"
"A while."
"Oh no, tell me it isn't true. You haven't had sex since your divorce." Rachel sounded so mortified Claire almost laughed.
"I have not had sex with anyone since Robert," Claire said. Not a total lie. Robert showed up at her house six months after their divorce finalized, making promises and asking for Claire's forgiveness. Claire had a momentary lapse in judgment.
"Okay, great! Well, I gave Ben your number, and he's gonna call you to arrange something for next weekend."
"What? Why?" Claire groaned. "I can't meet someone on the phone, you know I have a horrible phone personality."
"You'll love him. He's a lawyer; he's not about bullshit. And guess what? He's running for mayor."
"A politician? That sounds horrible."
"Most importantly, he's hot."
"If he's so great, why don't you date him?" Claire asked, but Rachel ignored the question.
Claire wished the couch would open and swallow her whole. She hated first dates. No more first dates, was that not the number one perk of getting married? She cringed, thinking of all that nervous anticipation.
Rachel still talked, listing Ben's pros and cons, but Claire zoned out. She already felt nervous anticipation to see someone, and it was not a smooth talking lawyer. It was a rough man with a beard and tattoos.
CHAPTER FIVE
Eli slid another mug of beer down the counter. Saturday night was always their busiest night, this one no different. A live country rock band played in the corner stage; a new addition Molly had talked them into.
"Don't look now, but we're gonna have to open the extra lounge," Jack said, walking by Eli to hand a waitress a few glasses of beer. Jack wore his typical jeans and a flannel shirt with his sleeves rolled up. His height mirrored Eli's, but their physical similarities ended there. Jack's hair was long enough to fall in his eyes, he kept a five o'clock shadow and never a beard.
Eli followed the direction of Jack's head nod, surprised to see a crowd of at least thirty people in nice suits and fancy dresses entering the brewery.
A young couple, about Eli's age, stood at the front of the group. She looked as though she had been crying, and the man standing next to her wrapped his arms around her. He whispered something in her ear and she laughed.
A man in his early sixties with gray hair and a brown, and likely very expensive, suit broke away from the crowd and stepped up to the counter. He addressed Eli and Jack, nervousness obvious in his voice.
"I hope you have room. It's my daughter's wedding rehearsal dinner at the country club, and just when we got there, a pipe burst, flooding the floors." He held out his hand to shake Jack's, and Eli saw he had a bill folded up in the palm of his hand. "I'm Michael, if you could do anything to accommodate us."
"I'm the owner Jack, and my manager, Eli. We actually have another lounge," Jack said, indicating the closed door on the other side of the room, and slipping the bill into his pocket. "If you guys can hang out here for a moment, we can get it ready for you."
"Oh, thank you," the man said, relief in his voice as he walked back to give his family the good news.
"Can we handle it tonight? We're swamped as it is," Eli said, waving his hand at the full dining room.
"We'll have to call around, ask if anyone else can come in." Jack pulled the bills out of his pocket. "Do you see this?"
Jack held out a one hundred-dollar bill.
"He didn't even know if you were going to get them seats when he gave you that," Eli said, a little stunned. It always amazed him how people could be so careless with their money.
"Who am I to tell him how to spend his money? I'll put in it in the tip jar at the end of the night," Jack said, stuffing the bill back into his pocket. He picked up the phone under the cash register. "M
olly, babe, we need all hands on deck."
Eli grabbed Lucas, the busboy, and they made their way into the lounge, taking chairs off of tables and setting out sets of silverware. Molly showed up in the room a few minutes later. She twisted her auburn hair into a bun on the back of her head and tucked her white shirt into her black pants. She seemed different that night.
"Hey, you grew," Eli said, tousling the top of her head as she walked by him.
"Heels," she said, picking up her leg, and showing off her boots. "I'm tired of having to drag the stool around with me everywhere."
Molly went to work rewriting the drink specials on the chalkboard lined wall.
"Do you have menus?" Eli asked.
Molly shook her head." Frank might want to offer a limited menu."
"I'll go to the kitchen in a minute and ask. Is anyone coming in?" Eli asked her, as he stepped back and swept a glance over the room, checking for imperfections. They still needed to open the blinds.
"No. Everyone is busy or not answering their phones. But Rachel's coming in," Molly said. Eli never understood how Molly and Rachel had become such close friends, they seemed so different.
"What good is Rachel going to be?" Eli scoffed as he pulled on the blind cord. The view before him was breathtaking, straight down the mountain and into the ocean, stars filling the night sky.
"She used to waitress in high school; she'll be good," Molly said, putting the finishing touches on the board. "Plus, she's a knockout; she can keep the men's minds off the fact we're understaffed and slow."
Eli snorted.
"Rachel tells me you met Claire at school the other night," Molly said in a singsong voice. "She's as perfect as I said, right?"
Jack joined them and walked around the room making a quick inspection of the setup.
"Good time on setup, guys," Jack said. Eli heard Jack's excitement.
Jack's dream had been to open a brewery upstate with a few old friends from his fishing boat days. But when he and Molly got back together, he stayed in town. With Eli's help, Jack got the woman and the career of his dreams.
